


Headline News

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Coming Out, Losers Club Group Chat, M/M, Paparazzi, Stephen King References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 07:10:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21240200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: I started this a WHILE back based on a request I saw and I no longer remember who requested it or where, and by now there have definitely been a million takes on this exact thing, but if you just can't get enough Richie dealing with pap shots of him and Eddie, Richie trying to be super casual in his coming out, and all of their friends knowing, then here is a short and sweet take on that.





	Headline News

RICHIE TOZIER SPOTTED WITH MYSTERY MAN

He looks at the email from his manager, the various screencaps of headlines, bits of articles. He’s not on the front of any tabloids, but the internet is another story.

Shit.

_ Comedian Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier caused a stir recently_… _ bombed his sold-out show, leading many to question_… _ resurfaced in the small town of Derry, Maine_… _ caught in a full-blown freakout in a Chinese restaurant_… _ most recently, Tozier was seen in Ogunquit, canoodling with an unidentified man outside one of the area’s many gay-friendly bed and breakfasts_…

“Hey, Eddie?”

“What’s wrong?” Eddie moves to his side immediately, banishing any hope that he might have managed to sound like he wasn’t in a _ full-blown freakout _ right the fuck now. 

They weren’t even _ canoodling_\-- and who says _ canoodling_?-- that’s what gets him. There are pictures. He’s laughing at something Eddie is saying to him in one of them, sitting across from each other at a cafe, knees resting together under the tiny table. He’s holding Eddie’s hand on the beach, the two of them stumbling over the rocks and keeping each other upright. He’s helping Eddie out of the car at the bed and breakfast, where he’d taken him because they couldn’t stomach being in Derry any longer than they had to be, and because yeah, okay, it was _ gay-friendly _ in Ogunquit, it was a whole other world from the one he’d known before, the one he’d felt so stifled and frightened by. They’d argued over who would get what suitcases, Eddie had screwed up his courage to kiss Richie out in the open, which they never would have dared back in their hometown, he’d missed his lips and got his chin. Richie hadn’t been able to resist pinching his cheek and calling him cute then, but it’s not like they were making out, there wasn’t even a solid embrace. 

Who took all these pictures, anyway? Just people with cell phones? Fuck people with cell phones. Maybe Bill should write a book about how people with cell phones are definitely going to cause the fucking apocalypse. Not that Richie hasn’t played his fair share of truly mind-numbing phone games, but he doesn’t go amateur paparazzo on people. And he could have gotten some great shots if he was going to, at a couple of parties he’s been to.

Richie has no idea how to say any of what’s going through his head, so he tilts his phone towards Eddie and lets him take it, to scroll through it all to his heart’s content.

“I haven’t searched for any more than what he sent me, but…” He shrugs.

“Oh.” Eddie swallows, and then his arms wrap around Richie’s shoulders and he kisses his cheek warmly. “Hey… it’s okay. I mean, it’s not _ great_, but… I mean, it _ sucks _ that you can’t come out on your own terms, but you-- you’ve talked about it. We’ve talked about… having a life together. Eventually people were going to see us.”

“It’s not that. Eds, c’mon. I-- Yeah, I’ve got hangups about my sexuality, but I want to be open about _ you_. I think, all things considered, I’m dealing with my hangups pretty well. It’s… it’s the way they’re talking about us hand in hand with ‘breakdown’, like… like you’re an experiment during a mid-life crisis, or something I decided to do on a coke bender, and not the love of my life. And for the record, I’ve never been on a coke bender.”

“So tell ‘em different.” Eddie settles into his lap, and that helps. 

“We haven’t even come out to our friends.” He sighs. “Shit, I gotta… I gotta call everyone before they see this.”

“We. And our friends don’t google you in their spare time.”

“They might.” He shrugs, pulling up the group text.

_ Sup bitches I’m gay as hell _

_ Thought I’d better tell you before the internet does it for me_, he sends. 

The first reply rolls in almost immediately. _ No shit, sherlock_. Followed by _ Wait you mean you and Eddie aren’t on a totally platonic b&b retreat after the days you spent sobbing over his bedside and buying him flowers and holding his hand and… _

_ Yeah okay asshole I get it. _ He sighs, tossing his phone down and burying his face in Eddie’s neck. Eddie, who has his own phone out so that he can read the replies to Richie’s coming-out. 

“Eloquent.” He teases, snuggling back into Richie’s lap.

“You wanna know why I’ve never been on a coke bender?”

“Because that shit will kill you?”

“Something like that.” Richie chuckles, tugging the collar of Eddie’s shirt down so that he can press a kiss to the skin further down. “Because I was at a party once and someone offered, and… there was this little voice, this little kid voice, in the back of my head, saying ‘that shit will kill you’, and it was so disgusted and like… I don’t know, like he’d be disappointed. Like you’d be disappointed. I couldn’t remember you, but I couldn’t forget you.”

“Aww.” Eddie runs one hand through Richie’s hair. 

Richie’s phone buzzes, and buzzes again when he doesn’t immediately open the text. After a frustrated moment trying and failing to reach it without removing his lips from the hollow of Eddie’s throat, he feels along Eddie’s arm and finds the phone in his hand, looking at it instead. It’s the same group chat, after all.

  
_ You’re all just jealous because my man is a romantic_, the text says-- the sent text, the text Eddie sent to everyone. Richie leans up to capture his lips. Whatever the internet wants to say about them, he can handle.


End file.
